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Welcome back to my Civ 3 AI-only game! This week we'll be continuing old rivalries and starting new ones. Here we see the Austrian city ruins under control of Swiss troops. It's always a mistake to raze a city in Civ 3 as there isn't global happiness, only city-level happiness. It's now a race to settle the Venetian marshlands, and if Italy get there first, it's a great site to further their mainland expansions.

This is the Austria people are fighting. The Winged Hussars (Babylonian horsemen you need to pretend have horses) are fighting well but the poor health duo near Salzburg are ripe for picking off since their defence strength is only 1, compared to the swordsmen's 3 attack strength.

Athens finishes the Great Wall to great acclaim, cementing their position in the Peloponnese. As predicted, the razing of the Austrian city was a poor choice and the Romans nab the spot. With their Phalanx (hoplites) they'll be tough to usurp.

Between the Romans and Greeks are the Serbs - still believing there's spaces to settle, Belgrade residents are joining forces to emigrate to sunny lands, or any land at all. Other Serb cities are building swordsmen to better their Ottoman offensive.

Copenhagen completes the Great Lighthouse. It provides the ability for safe transport across sea tiles as well as increased speed. More importantly on this map is the Golden Age it brings for certain civs. The Danish are definitely Seafaring so they get it - increased production and decreased corruption.

This is a view of Iberia - replete with English outpost, and Seville's tardy attempt at the Lighthouse. I'm not sure who out of Portugal or Spain will end up most successful here - one the one hand Spain has a larger land mass on the peninsula, but Portugal's strength is in Africa and a clever pincer move could scupper Spain.

A pitiful Austria looks battered as Swiss spearmen raze tile improvements, hoping to starve the cities, reduce their production, and slow down enemy troops. It's like a classic medieval siege! The Swiss don't have the offensive strength to finish off the Austrians but I believe the Austrians are out of the game at least - in stark contrast to the three test games I ran before this one! Sorry Austrian fans...

A stray Serb swordsman is injured on Sicily, which makes me think they're at war with Rome (as the Greek worker is either oblivious or not scared). It's a foolish invasion, one lone troop against a defended town.

Austria still has access to enough resources, but they're not local ones, so I assume they're trading with Poland. Switzerland really need to commit or peace out as they're not making progress in this state.

Looks like a plucky little Netherlands are bringing the fight to Poland, who have already got their empire up to scratch after knocking out the Germans last part. They'll need more swordsmen than that!

Athens is racking up the wonders, and this is a big one! The Great Library gives you every single technology that two or more other civs have already discovered, and if you're ever far behind in tech, that means you could get ten or more techs in one go. It expires at Education but we're far from that yet.

Ps, Leipzig is not undefended right now, but for some reason when loading turns where units have fought, the game seems to blank the units out completely for a sec. Assume all cities have a defender present until I mention otherwise.

As a result of all those wonders, I took a look at Greece. A nice civ, with one good direction to expand in, and great production and good food resources too. They're definitely in my top three.

Russia's land gathering yields positives in the first of the stats this part. Poland and Greece are up there.

The Dutch and Portuguese need to up their game. Shocking is England - I thought they were doing okay.

Power tables don't show anyone in control yet, but Russia and the two major Mediterranean civs seem to be in front.

Greece is winning the hearts of the citizens though.

Back to the action, we see that Portugal and the Dutch have declared on Austria, hoping to carve them up quick before Switzerland get their act together. Looks like the Dutch aren't at war with Poland but I'm not totally sure... there's no hope is there?

Rome seems to have launched a successful naval invasion through Sofia and also taken Zagreb too. The Ottomans must be annoyed, and that also stresses Greece out too as there's now a warzone to the North with some powerful civs included. The Roman legionary is one of my favourite units, with 3 attack and 3 defense - meaning if the attack doesn't work, it still probably won't die when the enemy moves. The units Serbia is producing are very weak and hint at the imminent collapse.

Greece is firmly in the Medieval era - this wonder gives free barracks to every Greek city on the continent. Austria is in trouble as Innsbruck seems to be low on troops. I suspect Poland will take it before too long.

Greece is going wild. The Hague, in the Northeast of England, is miffed they cannot construct a mythical Middle-Eastern birthday gift. Ireland are building Gallic Swordsmen, a favourite unit of mine with double movement. I hope they declare war on someone.

An interesting look here at the top five cities of the world. Second and third place are in danger now, though.

The Danish look to expand. I don't know the troop composition of those stacks but the Dutch cities are not well defended yet. Amsterdam is building the Swiss Mercenaries, a unit with 4 defense.

French armies are on the move too, this time against Poland. Poland are now overextended as most of their army is in Austria but they've managed to russle up some Hussars.

And Leipzig falls. It's a good start for France and they should take a few more cities to really make the most of their opportunities!

Ukraine brings their steppe ladder and ascend the mountains to Krakow, taking it from a surprised Poland.

The Polish-Ukrainian border is long and now quite fluid. Szczecin would be an ace improvement to Ukraine, should they decide to actually send troops there.

Rome takes Innsbruck in a surprise twist. Not sure why they wouldn't go for a city closer to them!

The Knights Templar is completed - autobuilding a Crusader unit every five turns. It's powerful, with 5 attack and 3 defense.

A view of Greece shows they have Musketmen, a solid defender, and will build Leonardo's Workshop very soon. That makes upgrading troops much cheaper.

Greece uses its strength to take Basel from the Swiss. It's a step in the right direction and now gives the Classical civs a good border to squabble over.

Russia takes on Poland, who are now under attack from a lot of different civs. Voojj (Lodz) falls and Gdynia looks likely to fall.

Rome takes another Austrian city with plenty of troops to spare, but they need to rally them to Vienna.

Portugal marches through the length of France to take Hastings off the English. Sadly, this is the start of the end of English dominion over Europe, a trend sure to continue until the 21st century.

Greece and Rome are both flaunting their military.

...but only Rome takes Lausanne. This gives them a contiguous empire in this part of the world and should they make some workers connect them up this is a lovely addition to the empire.

Hastings flips back to the English. This is the cultural flip, where a nearby civ's culture is so dominant it forces the city to join their nation. The only way to combat it is to add cultural buildings so fast that the new civ becomes dominant in the neighbourhood - which Portugal failed to do. Those spearmen won't take it back, so England win this time!

Denmark have taken Hamburg, and France have taken Geneva. This is all good expansion.

A zoomed-out view of Central Europe and the Northeast. Russia has a lot of troops to plough through Poland with little resistance.

Russia takes the lead again, and Sweden is coming up to third fast. Spain is doing pretty well but is remaining quite quiet, they should expand soon if they want to climb the rankings.

Denmark, curiously, is lagging behind. Score is partially based on happiness so I assume it's an issue with that, as they're larger than Austria and the Dutch.

Power stats are now interesting - there's three clear contenders in Rome, Greece, and Russia. Out of these, I'd favour Russia - lots of room to expand and plenty of people to expand into. Rome and Greece only really have one direction to head in but at the same time that's a good things as they can concentrate their forces and attack in only one direction. The AI is so good at splitting their forces across multiple directions which a good defender can destroy quickly. Of the next bunch of nations, Sweden, Spain, and the Ottomans all stand a chance. Sweden has to get through Denmark first; Spain needs to destroy Portugal quick; and the Ottomans need to expand quicker than Greece can.

Greece is the still the coolest place to be! This is the end of this part. Thanks for watching and until next time.